Jason Rapert bullies Medical Board over abortion rules

Be sure to read Leslie Newell Peacock's article this week about e-mail unearthed in an FOI request that shows Sen.Jason Rapert hectoring the state Medical Board about whether his law making woman get information about fetal heartbeats when seeking an abortion is being complied with.

Rapert's legislative intrusion into the practice of medicine and women's lives rests in the belief that the information will discourage women from having an abortion.

A number of studies have been done on the point. And despite representations to the contrary by anti-abortion people, the research indicates that women who'd made decisions to end a pregnancy didn't change their minds as a result of mandatory ultrasound tests that they viewed.

Rapert seems to believe women are not getting the information because thousands of abortions occurred despite the required fetal heartbeat test. It apparently doesn't occur to him that few women came to the decision to visit an abortion provider on a whim or without consideration of the consequences.

In demanding proof that the law is being complied with, Rapert seems to want a state agency to round up medical records from physicians for review for compliance, with patient names redacted. That's an astonishing invasion of medical privacy, redaction or no. And it would surely be followed by a demand for proof from Rapert that the patient really, really did get the information (because wouldn't the patient's signature be redacted? and wouldn't a patient have chosen not to get an abortion if they really got the forced information?).

The Arkansas legislature would never do this kind of thing to men.

UPDATE: Check into the "replies" category on Jason Rapert's Twitter page for many reactions to this item. In short, he's just doing his job asking questions. And I'm defaming him again by printing facts about his actions.